In general, animal feed products are compositions of a large variety of raw materials or ingredients. The ingredients can be selected to optimize the amount of any given nutrient or combination of nutrients in an animal feed product based upon the nutrient composition of the ingredients used.
The nutritional composition of any one feed ingredient can be used in combination with the nutritional composition of every other ingredient in the feed to produce an animal feed that maximizes an evaluation criteria. One example of an evaluation criteria is the growth and production rate of the animal in the shortest amount of time. Animal feed producers have recognized that certain nutritional compositions help animals to meet or exceed evaluation criteria than if they used other nutritional compositions. For example, a particular cow feed composition can be made that will deliver an improved balance of essential amino acids post ruminally. This has been shown to have the effect of increasing the cow's milk production. Maximizing the speed and frequency with which animals meet the evaluation criteria generally is desirable. Maximizing criteria satisfaction also may include maximizing some positive criteria, such as total muscle gain, or minimizing a negative criteria, such as weight loss during illness.
A composition can be used in several forms: complete feed form, concentrate form, blender form and base mix form. An example of the complete feed form can include wheat middlings, corn, soybean meal, corn gluten meal, distillers grains or distillers grains with solubles, blood meal, salt, macro-minerals, trace minerals, and vitamins.
Further, animal feed producers have recognized that desirable nutritional composition changes depending on the developmental stage of the animal in question (e.g. newborn, weaning, gestating). The ideal nutrient composition can also change based on additional factors, including the health of the animal and whether the animal is nursing. Therefore, animal feed producers have recognized that by mixing ingredients to produce an ideal nutritional composition for particular animals at particular growth stages, they can meet evaluation criteria.
Thus, there is a need for a method and system for maximizing nutritional criteria satisfaction. Further, there is a need for a system and method to create a customized animal feed formulated to satisfy some requirement.